#1 = 1 Deep Purple (Equals One)
Review by Joe Viglione
This writer goes way back with Deep Purple, to the Summerthing Concert series in Boston, 1972, in the front row as Ritchie Blackmore destroyed his guitar and I had to flee the rabid fans almost slam-dancing BEFORE slam dancing to get splinters of wood from it in front of the stage. Now in 2024, fifty-two years on, I'm amazed that the fan base has grown, stunningly, as vast as that of the Velvet Underground, though few members of each respective club would probably belong to both.
Simon McBride sounds great on guitar, replacing Steve Morse, and Bob Ezrin's production is stellar as ever, the perfect producer for this legendary ensemble. Ian Gillan gets right down to business on "Lazy Sod," https://youtu.be/bbkNm739ULA reminding us of way back when where "Perfect Strangers" totally impressed in 1984 with the nine year gap since Come Taste the Band. Perfect Strangers (album) - Wikipedia
Now it's 40 years since Perfect Strangers, how time flies, Director Leo Feimer has the video placed in a set like the 1999 film The Matrix where Morpheus first takes Neo into the computer world. They're all having fun in the video, Gillan especially, Don Airey getting that vintage Jon Lord sound on keys, and the song romping with that splendid guitar elegantly gliding through the three minutes and forty-five seconds.
"Pictures of You" is reminiscent of Gillan's time with Black Sabbath, edgier, darker, actually feeling like a sequel of sorts to "Perfect Strangers," musically. Magic musical stops and starts, the band in sync, and Ezrin's sound from the Alice Cooper days bubbling under, though all concerned may not realize it. Purple kicks it up a notch about 2:50 in, these guys are serious!
"Portable Door" - the video - feels like Stargate/the Time Tunnel-Star Trek's The City on the Edge of Forever, https://youtu.be/bbwiEDD04CY Space Truckin' indeed, back to the future.
Now & Then Review by Joe Viglione
In the early '90s, producer Rob Fraboni was the man behind Domino Records, a label distributed by Relativity Entertainment Distribution. Domino released Zoom, the self-produced album by Ten Years After guitarist Alvin Lee, along with two discs produced by Fraboni, one by blues artist John Mooney and the other being this excellent effort by Rusty Kershaw. For fans of Neil Young's Harvest, this is even more laid-back, but it shows Young's roots, and he actually shows up on six of the 13 tracks. "I Like to Live on the Bayou" has Ben Keith on dobro and pedal steel, and Young playing a melancholy harmonica. This material was recorded and mixed in New Orleans, and it can't be beat for authenticity. Now & Then is a record from another time and place, and if you aren't accustomed to the sound, it really needs to be played a couple of times to detox you from what you may be used to listening to; the 12 Kershaw originals and one arrangement of a traditional tune, "Stop Kicking My Dog Around," have an amazing effect when given a proper ear. Fraboni's production is perfect, allowing the music to get absorbed by the analog recording tape. Art Neville's piano on "Musician's Woman" and "I Don't Like the Feeling" is a nice addition to the Subdudes, the band recording with Kershaw on this disc (Steve Armadee on tambourine, Johnny Ray Allen on bass, Tommy Malone providing acoustic guitar, and John Magnie on keyboards). "This Is Rock & Roll" is not rock & roll -- it's some blend of folk and Cajun music -- but it works, and the instrumentation weaves a nice tapestry here, a little more uptempo than most of the record. "I Don't Like the Feeling" brings things right back down; Kershaw's vocals are almost unintelligible, and the performance feels like B.J. Thomas' 45 rpm version of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" played at 33 rpm. There is amazing precision in these grooves; Kershaw is able to slow things down with more intensity than Vanilla Fudge in its heyday. Fans of modern rock might find this musical morass monotonous, but that would be a pity. "Married Man," with contributions from Young and Keith, is like some sort of Cajun funk. It's music with a well-deserved cult following, and is a treat for connoisseurs of the genre.
Info for Doug "Cosmo" Clifford
https://www.highresaudio.com/en/album/view/tf2q4o/doug-clifford-doug-cosmo-clifford
Originally released in 1972, Cosmo - the only solo effort from Creedence
Clearwater Revival’s drummer Doug “Cosmo” Clifford - was recorded not
long after the breakup of the legendary Bay Area band. Encompassing
elements of country and R&B, plus plenty of up-tempo hooks. The
album features CCR’s bassist Stu Cook on rhythm guitar, legendary
sideman and Stax session musician Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass, plus
members of Tower of Power on horns. Available for the first time in 45
years, the album is newly remastered by Clifford. An essential addition
to every CCR or Grateful Dead aficionado’s record collection.
"Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford would stick with his
bandmate Stu Cook long after the band fragmented and dissolved, and
Doug makes an appearance on this interesting release. But as Doug and
Stu's Creedence Clearwater Revisited doesn't perform the music from
Cosmo in concert, what the listener finds is a competent artifact from
the end of the Creedence era, a competent but not very compelling voice
covering Doug Sahm's "She's About a Mover," John Sebastian's "Daydream,"
and the Spencer Davis Group hit written by Jimmy Miller and Steve
Winwood (with Davis getting added to the copyright after the fact for
throwing in that great chord that breaks the riff up). The eight other
songs on this 11-track outing are composed by the drummer, and they
aren't bad. But they also prove why being adequate is much different
from being great, and why John Fogerty steered the ship. Thirty years
after the group disbanded, Doug "Cosmo" Clifford and Stu Cook are still
performing Fogerty's material. The addition of Donald "Duck" Dunn on
bass and Tower of Power on horns while they were just starting to get
hot is a plus. Tower sound great on "Get Your Raise," and had Clifford
issue about ten of these albums on Fantasy instead of one, he may have
developed a Doug Kershaw- or Rusty Kershaw-type following. There's some
neat instrumentation on the upbeat cover of the Lovin' Spoonful, but
nothing extraordinary here. "Take a Train" -- like much of the music on
Cosmo -- plays like a throwback to a different time. It's R&B with a
country flair, and would fit into a movie soundtrack nicely enough. The
difference between solo recordings by ex-members of mainstream artists
like Creedence Clearwater and left field groups like Roxy Music and the
Velvet Underground is the difference between music you purchase to
cherish and records you pick up to complete your collection. For what it
is, Cosmo is better than what you'd expect, but not as good as it could
have been. Photography is by Bob Fogerty." (Joe Viglione, AMG)
Doug Clifford, drums, lead vocals
Stu Cook, rhythm guitar
Donald "Duck" Dunn, bass
Judiyaba, cello
John Mingo Lewis, maracas, conga
John McFee, guitar, steel guitar
Steve Miller, piano
Armando Peraza, bongos, guitas
Tower Of Power Horn Section:
Greg Adams, trumpet
Emilio Castillo, tenor sax
Mic Gillette, trumpet, trombone
Stephen Kupka, baritone sax
Skip Mesquite, tenor sax
Walter Hawkins, vocals
Lynette Hawkins, vocals
Feddie Smith, vocals
Eddie Bayers, vocals
Digitally remastered
Read My Lips Review by Joe Viglione
On "Sloe Gin," Tim Curry sounds like John Cale playing Lou Reed. That Reed guitarist Dick Wagner and producer Bob Ezrin are involved in Read My Lips, the solo debut from the star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, should come as no surprise. Wagner's tastefully brilliant guitar on "Sloe Gin" underscores the melancholy vocal, and these journeymen are the perfect crew to work on this "film for the ear" sequel. Dick Wagner sounds very much like Nils Lofgren here, and Lofgren shows up playing accordion. It's a big cast and a big sound, but Bob Ezrin refines it all, keeping the large musical presence as subtle as possible. Perhaps the best compliment one can give this record is that it is almost back to Berlin, the brilliant Lou Reed recording, this time put in a commercial setting. Curry mutates from Cale to Mitch Ryder with his shouting in "Harlem on My Mind," then he mutates midsong to some '30s crooner. Since Berlin (the album, not songwriter Irving Berlin, who composed "Harlem") was the aforementioned film for the ear, it makes sense that some of the crew involved with that epic disc would do another such endeavor when the cat who performed in the ultimate cult film had an album to cut. The sheer drama of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" is the album's zenith, highlight, and treasure. It is so good it takes away from the beauty of the rest of the disc. It's Dr. Frank N. Furter dancing a waltz with Dionne Warwick trapped on the psychic network. It is brilliant. The Regimental Pipers and Drums of the Forty-Eighth Highlanders of Canada are superb, blending their marching-band sounds with Curry's unique voice -- halfway to Alice Cooper but detouring to Robert Goulet's house. This isn't Brian Eno's Portsmouth Sinfonia, nor is it Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk"; this is a mini-epic which should have at the very least appealed to the myriad fans of Berlin and at most sold millions of discs. A reggae version of Lennon/McCartney's "I Will"? It is reverent and works better than Lou Christie running through "If I Fell," to give just one Beatles cover comparison. As an interpreter, Curry is marvelous; he relishes this role as he did Rocky Horror. Roy Wood's "Brontosaurus" might be an oddity, but so is covering Joni Mitchell's "All I Want" or stretching Irving Berlin's "Harlem on My Mind." It's an amazing cast of rock & roll characters who come to the party: Lee Michaels on keyboards, Allan Schwartzberg on drums, and a record that should have been put on video. It works so much better than Bob Ezrin's Kiss venture, Music From "The Elder", and only goes to show that Lou Reed taught them well. Irving Berlin on the sequel to Berlin --- now that's very Lou Reed, and a very clever tip to the master. https://www.allmusic.com/album/read-my-lips-mw0001879668
